Is There Something Like Agile Maturity?

“This was the best sprint we have ever had. We are becoming (more) agile.” Somehow, a sense of progress always seems to be fuzzy notion when it comes to ‘agile.’ And the question at the heart of all of it is always the same: How do we find out that we are ‘agile’ and are not merely practicing a form of cargo cult version of it?

Providing a path to an ultimate state of being has been a core principle of many teachings in philosophy, sociology, politics, and religion: If you follow this code, if you accept the guidance of your life by the following rules everything will be fine. (And for everyone’s convenience, we provide you with a book, a guide, and probably even a checklist.)

To no one’s surprise, the agile world is not exempt from that. What started with the Manifesto for Agile Software Development — four values and twelve principles that fit on a single page —, was followed by the still light-weight Scrum Guide. Today, the caliber of teaching has changed — just have a look the big picture diagram of SAFe® — and even in the agile world, the path to the promised land seems to be meticulously laid out.

Which leads to the question: What is the ‘promised land’ in agile terms? Are we all supposed to turn to sociocracy or holacracy?

Help us to understand better what the goal of becoming ‘agile’ means for an organization by contributing to this short anonymous survey. It will not take more than five minutes of your valued time. Of course, the results of the survey will be shared at a later stage.

Published by

Stefan Wolpers

Stefan — based in Berlin, Germany — has been working for 12+ years as agile coach, ScrumMaster and Product Owner. He is an XSCALE Alliance XBA Coach (XBAC) as well as a member of Scrum Alliance (CSP, CSPO, CSM). He is also a certified LeSS practitioner (CLP). He has developed B2C as well as B2B software, mainly for startups, including a former Google subsidiary.